Oh! The Depth of My Depravity

The longer we walk with the Lord, the further we realize we have to go.

When I first started living as a Christian about 12 years ago, I thought I would be uber-sanctified. I thought the struggles I wrestled with then would be over and I would be aglow with holiness. Perhaps I never articulated that but it was an assumption nonetheless. Although my sins from then have ceased, they have morphed into something else. Better, I am realizing the depth of those symptoms is much deeper than I had feared.

I made it a discipline over the past few years to begin asking what was in back of all my actions. I would not be satisfied with the answer, “Well, it’s sin.” I wanted to ask the more precise questions of “why” it was sin, “how” it was sin, and the reason as to why I persisted in that sin. It is far too easy and affords not as much cleansing from sin when we stop short of what the Spirit wants us to learn when we test ourselves to see if we are in the faith. Instead of just saying “I sinned because I am a sinner,” we need to do the hard work of excising the cancer that is parasiting on our heart. To perform heart surgery you have to both break ribs and tenderly cut. This exercise I am getting ready to illustrate is the breaking of the ribs.

One of the disciplines I was taught early in my Christian life was to memorize Scripture. The typical rationale finds root in Psalm 119.11–“Your word I have hid in my heart, so that I might not sin against you.” This is a great motivation for memorizing God’s Word! Another reason is found in Proverb 25.11–“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in fittings of silver.” We want to have God’s word on our lips when a brother or sister are hurting and need encouragement to press forward in a trial.

While these motivations are definitely in back of my desire to memorize Scripture, they are intermingled with a nastier nemesis. I too often times want people to know that I have memorized Scripture so that they will exclaim my knowledge and humility. The things of God become tools to exalt me. The fruit of the Spirit is juiced for my aggrandizement. I am kind, I am good, I am gentle, I am self-controlled for my own glory.

The sooner we realize that all our acts of righteousness are tainted with sin, the sooner we will realize our need of a Savior. The longer it takes, the more we will wallow in pride or self-delusionment.